What Is a Mini Notebook?

Published at 03/16/2012 23:17:15

Introduction

A mini notebook is a small legacy and very portable laptop. They are these miniature laptops people can carry in their arms like a small notebook and is a very popular gadget among busy youngsters like students. With people having the need of laptops everywhere they go and with the convenience of having Wi-Fi connection in restaurants libraries, etc., the demand for notebooks has reached a sky high level. In addition, with the introduction of tiny USB modems that provide you with your personal internet connection it really isn’t that hard to go online any more. People opt for notebooks over laptops because laptops are usually 15 inches or bigger and much heavier than notebooks. A mini notebook is generally just 10 -12 inches big and = very light to carry around. You could squeeze it inside a text book if you wanted. However, these machines weren’t designed or made to compete with large laptops. Rather they satisfy a separate need found in the laptop market. In fact, mini notebooks aren’t as powerful as larger laptops and even the advanced versions can’t handle heavy programs.

History

Mini notebooks were originally designed as a part of the One Laptop per Child initiative. These laptops were made for young school children to be able to carry laptops to school and use them for educational purposes. These notebooks were out to cost only $100 per child but could only be brought down to around $200. That is actually one of the major features of the Mini notebooks, that they are very cost effective. They were thought to revolutionize the educational system in developing countries being low-cost and affordable for children to use in schools, or could have been provided by the schools. The first notebook “XO laptop” was commercialized in 2007, and by 2008 had slowly started to capture the market share of laptops. Asus, HP and Dell were some of the first companies to bring mini notebooks into the market and compete with them using Intel processors or AMD processors.

Features

These notebooks were never meant to be as powerful as traditional laptops but offer features that you’ll find in most advanced laptops. USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet ports, webcams, LED screens, DVD drives (in some latest models even Blu-ray drives) and even finger printing locking. No Mini notebook was ever designed to weight more than 1kg which as I said before is one of its key and main features. This made it very portable for students to carry and hence the gadget became popular not only for school but all levels of students, especially ones in colleges and universities. Teachers find it convenient to use notebooks in class rather than desktop computers or laptops. Even many businessmen needing to travel a lot find notebooks more beneficial to use since they already carry a lot of their own luggage.

Tips and comments

Mini notebook seems to be very attractive, especially if you go for Sony or HP notebooks that have funky designs. They are stealing a large share of the laptop market although not intend to but then again any laptop manufacturer now also make mini notebook in order to not lose much share in the market.